The Bloodied Hand
by ShinyFind
Summary: Dark Eldar adventure featuring Shakira Shakuhachi, Archon of the Bloodied Hand Kabal.  Extract pending positive feedback .


Uber Dracon Shakira Shakuhachi just couldn't get comfy. She wriggled her shoulders in discomfort as the hard edge of Flicker's fuel tank dug into her back through the thin membrane of her bodysuit. Irritably she fished her forming pen from a pouch on her boot, clicked its digital switch through its three pre-programmed settings into free sculpt mode and pressed one end to the tank. The small amount of signatured energy the narrow cylinder emitted realigned the molecules of the variable configuration polymer into an easily malleable state, allowing Shakira to mould out a comfortable lie. When she had the tank conformed to the shape of her back she pulled the former away and the molecular structure stiffened again, maintaining its new design.

Leaning back with her feet resting on Flicker's upper flight stabilizer she interlaced her fingers behind her head, yawned deeply and sighed.

"I hate waiting," she said to no one in particular.

Her two under Dracons, Akheto and Furn, were far more alert than their mistress, constantly looking around, suspicious of everything.

"Relax," Shakira ordered them. "No one here is going to stick you."

Akheto rose to his full height of one hundred and eighty-five centimetres, quite short for an Eldar, to glare warily at the posse of Reavers that Shakira had brought in from her old crew. Some lounged idly on the grass or reclined on their jetbikes, others swapped stories, drugs and battle tips. A few sat high on the saddles of their immobile rides, awaiting the order to fire up and move out.

His attention was temporarily snatched when he noticed a female shotgun rider fornicating with her carrier on their black and gold two-seater, five bikes to his left. His glaring stare dropped and an evil smirk creased his lips.

"Nice," he noted with a harsh laugh.

Furn, a communicator held tightly in her un-gloved hand, looked over at Akheto and smile weakly. She was fine in a fight, but the anticipation had her wound tight enough to snap. Her dark purple hair, cut short and styled into spiky bangs, fanned out as she shook her head.

"I hate waiting too," she said in almost a whisper.

Beside her Shakira's Succubus Prime, Vlad Z, was crouched on his haunches rubbing leather softener into his old, weather beaten saddle with a metallic cloth.

Without opening her black tinted eyelids Shakira addressed him. "Why don't you just get a new one, Vlad?"

"My Lord," Vlad Z acknowledged. "I would, but breaking in a new saddle leaves me raw for weeks."

Those few ranked higher than Vlad chuckled at the Succubus' response, including Shakira.

"If we live through this I'll buy you a whole new bike, Vlad." She opened one lid and regarded him with amusement sparkling in her luminescent green eyes. "You can keep your old seat, if you like."

Vlad grinned at her.

"Me myself," Shakira continued, closing her eyes again. "I'm going to have Oraeha flayed. Do you think he'd be nice leather for my lovely Flicker?" She reached down and caressed the slick contours of her jetbike.

"Yes, My Lord," her subordinates chorused.

Suddenly Furn jumped as the communicator in her hand pulsed.

"My Lord!" She hopped off her bike and rushed to Shakira's side. "The Archon is ordering in the reserves!"

"Reavers! Mount up!" Shakira hollered.

With whoops of delight and expectation the Reavers bounded into action, peals of cackling laughter already beginning to slip out. Akheto gave Furn a friendly shove towards her own bike then dropped his leg to pump his stylish, but archaic, kick-start ignition.

Relieved of her stress, Furn sinuated under her forward swept stabilizers and mounted her jetbike. She rubbed her lucky tattoo and throttled her bike's engine to life.

Shakira used her Forming Pen to reset her tank structure as she flipped over to grip Flicker between her thighs. The control panel blinked invitingly and she pressed her pouting lips to its cold surface, a very unique verification for a very unique jetcycle.

The cacophonic noise of the jetbike engines rose around her like the ambience of Hell but as she tweaked her throttle Flicker's high pitched growl rose above them all.

The pride of Hawk Eye Reavers, Flicker stood alone not because of its customised Madness 47 model chassis but rather its engine; a three stage turbine utilising the infamous and extremely rare solid core antimatter oscillating degradation system. The engine used oscillating radiation brushes to strip atoms off a solid core of pure antimatter, the extremely dense matter form found in black holes that, in a regular jetbike, comprised less than one tenth of the fuel compound. The atoms were then reverse mass folded and shattered, generating explosive amounts of sub-atomic power that is contained by a dimensional resonance crystal that absorbs and channels the energy to power the turbine. A DarkLight engine.

Shakira used hand motions to talk to Furn. "Green light to Drakken and Solitaire," she signed.

Without waiting for confirmation Shakira twisted her throttle and released the magna spike, the shaft of electromagnetic energy driven into the planets magnetic field that held the howling bike in check, and shot over the small rise that hid her Reaver force from prying eyes, her posse in tow.

Laughter was whipped from her lips by the wind that tugged and pulled at her body as she weaved in and out of the broken Imperial landscape of battle torn buildings and ruined vehicles that she lead her Reavers into.

The overcast sky above was suddenly lit with a fiery orange as the setting sun fell between the clouds on the horizon behind her. Long shadows were cast by the ruined buildings and they stuttered over Shakira's vision as she turned north. The orange sky melted to a hot red that bled into purple as the sun rapidly set, and as the cloaking darkness descended the exhausts of the jetbikes flickered in the gloom, flaring brightly as the arguably insane Reavers triggered their after burners in small spurts.

Two green slits appeared in Shakira's silhouette as she activated the night vision mode of her half-mask. With practiced skill she slid half way off her saddle to the right, her body weight effectively disrupting the delicate balance of the bike, causing it to pitch. The broad bladed lower wing scraped a shower of sparks from the old rockcrete imperial highway she turned onto and she laughed again as kudos from her fellow Reavers filled her ears.

Microscopic lasers inside her mask projected light directly into her eyes, showing any and all information she wanted in the manner of a heads up display and according to her mini-map the highway ran all the way to the battlefield. She transmitted the information to her Reavers who gleefully viewed it as an opportunity to race.

Afterburners flared into life as every Reaver gunned his or her engine, accelerating to nearly half the speed of sound.

Shakira eased up on Flicker's throttle and let herself fall to the back of the swirling pack that blistered down the dark highway. She trailed behind by a few lengths until the road narrowed and the bombed and broken buildings began to press in around them, driving the Reavers tighter together, like a shoal of fish.

With a shout she triggered a double hit of Rushh from her drug dispenser implant, shook off the initial giddiness that swept over her and wound her bike's throttle fully open. Flicker's growl rose to a roar, kicked beneath her and began to fishtail slightly. Quickly Shakira pressed her thumb to the afterburner button and the engine screamed as a bombardment of ionised radiation ignited the trace elements of antimatter in Flicker's exhaust gasses, doubling the propulsion. With the extra power Shakira threaded easily through the pack and settled into the lead position for the final approach.

A kilometre from the battlefield Shakira signalled the deceleration to attack speed and gripped an ornate handle that protruded from the gap between fuel tank and fuselage. With a quick jerk she pulled a curved long sword from its sheath held it low, it's mono-molecular edge trailing in the wind. Behind her the other riders pulled and assortment of weapons from concealed holsters and sheaths on their bikes, and as the vocalisations of the Reavers ceased and more engines were switched to silent running, they began to hear sounds of the battle ahead, carried to them on the breeze.

Shakira's quick analysis of the situation was easily summed up. "Total cluster-fuck," she breathed joyfully.

From what she could make out, Archon Oraeha hit trouble when he let himself get out flanked by a company of imperial light cavalry. With all of his raiders shot down he couldn't counter attack quickly enough and was swiftly surrounded. So left with no choice and trying desperately to open an avenue of escape, Oraeha called for his reserves: Uber Dracon Shakira and her fifty odd Reaver jetbikes plus two full squads of Spartans, mounted in raiders. Little did he know that Shakira had called in another fifty Reavers from her cult and, with the extra strength, butchered the Spartans.

Shakira gave one last order before they reached the battle lines. "If it's not a Reaver, kill it!"

"I'd say that went well, wouldn't you?" The Hall of Shadows was typically dark, the side walls lost in blackness, most of the light coming from spotlights set in the floor that flanked the wide red carpet that led from the monolithic double doors to the foot of the stairs. Sheathed in hand polished crystal, clear and smooth as glass, the glitterstone stairs caught even the smallest light and sparkled like an unobscured starscape. This seeming cosmos ascended up for seven steps to a throne of horrific splendour, a curved back chair set with black leather on a solid base that seemed to grow into the wall behind it, the chair and wall carved in a relief of a thousand daemons holding a thousand skulls, each daemon contorted in agony as the thorns of Tartarus pulled and tore at their flesh, dragging them away from the chair and across the walls.

The Throne of Suffering... The Throne of Oraeha.

Shakira Shakuhachi, formerly Uber Dracon of the Acidic Mist Kabal under the dominion of Archon Oraeha Kutlatai, sat sideways on the throne with her legs casually hanging over one spiked arm of the great chair, her heels scissoring gently.

"Don't you think it went well?" Shakira asked again. "I'm not surprised if you don't reply," she said after a brief pause.

"You know what," she continued almost whimsically. "This was far easier than I thought it would be... You didn't put up the fight I had hoped you would." She lifted Archon Oraeha's severed head a little higher. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" She ordered.

She stood up angrily, holding the head by the hair, her playful attitude sliding away. "You fucking bastard!" She screamed at it. "You fucking maggot!" With a mighty heave she hurled Oraeha's head into the air, snatched her splinter pistol from its holster and shot the graceless target before it hit the hard floor with a sickening wet crack.

She slammed her pistol back into its holster and mashed a hidden button on the arm of the throne. Immediately the doors at the end of the hall opened and the Master of Protocol stepped into the room.

"Send them in!" She ordered.

The Master of Protocol made a gesture and the doors swung fully open, pushed by tall house guards resplendent in their spiked armour lacquered not in Acidic Mist Kabal's mottled green but rather in new colours; metallic black from neck to toes with the right gauntlet a bright bloody crimson.

The Master of Protocol cleared his throat and spoke in a deep booming voice. "Dracons Maknamara and Yi," he announced as Furn and Akheto began their long journey down the carpet towards the throne.

"Thanks Doorbell," Furn mocked the master as she passed him.

"Friggin' useless non-coms," Akheto grunted in agreement, in reference to the Master of Protocol.

3


End file.
